What is Open edX and what are the advantages of Open edX?

Starting the series of articles “getting to know the world of the Open edX™ platform” today we answer the first questions:

What is and what are the advantages of Open edX?

What is Open edX? Open edX is an open source online learning platform originally developed by the edX team (now know as Axim), a non-profit organization founded by MIT and Harvard. Installing and customizing Open edX in the cloud is the best way to get your LMS up and running.

Open edX offers a variety of tools to create and deliver online courses. It offers the ability to create courses with text, audio and video content, tests and online forum. Particularly Open edX includes live sessions and recorded content. Course authors can enable or block content as per defined conditions. Also, it offers integration with other learning tools, such as Zoom, H5P and data analysis such as our exclusive PANORAMA analytics engine. In addition, Installing Open edX in the cloud allows you to offer all the power of Open edX to your users.

This platform is used by educational institutions, academies, companies, governments and non-profit organisations to offer online courses and training programmes.

Some of the benefits of using the Open edX campus include:

• Open source. Since Open edX is an open source system, users have access to the source code and can adapt the system to their needs.
• Great flexibility. It allows authors to create and deliver of a wide variety of courses, from typical online courses to certification programmes and continuing education programmes. Administrators can perform Open edX customization thanks to its open design.
• Integration with other tools. Open edX can be linked easily with other tools, such as reporting systems, CRMs and data analytics. This allows for better course administration and better tracking of student performance.
• Active community. It has a large user community of developers and users who collaborate, develop and improve the platform, which guarantees constant progress and updates.
• Scalability. Open edX is scalable, which means that it can be adapted to the needs of any size of organisation, from small educational institutions to large companies.
• Accessibility. The platform is designed to be accessible for students with disabilities, complying with WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards.
• Use AWS to install Open edX with Tutor. Use the cloud to deliver the LMS service to all your users. Use Tutor instead of other installation options (like Bitnami Open edX) to have more flexibility to install.

To summarize, Open edX is the best choice for sites looking to deliver high quality on line education and measure the impact of their educational programmes.

Use AWS to install Open edX with Tutor.

Installing Open edX in the cloud can be a complex. With this in mind, Tutor is the official method to install Open edX in the cloud. AWS is a proven cloud vendor that can deliver all the services needed to make a production ready Open edX installation. Although you can use other popular installation options, like Bitnami Open edX, Tutor is the best choice because it gives more flexibility to make the Open edX customization that you need.

Learn about the installation options of Open edX in this article.

Want to know how your organization can use the Open edX platform to manage its online training projects?

Contact us!